Chasing Kate
by intriKate
Summary: Everyone's chasing something. Perspectives from Neal, Peter, and Elizabeth.


Neal, looking for Kate:

Life with Kate is a goddamn dream. Not a _dream_, like somehow lifting the Elgin Marbles and then under an entirely new identity returning them for an eight-figure reward (offered in ever increasing amounts as the UK and Greece each decide how much more they want it) and then using the money to buy an island. The island of Manhattan. For five figures and a bottle of almost-real scotch from Shackleton's rediscovered camp. Kate isn't that kind of dream, enjoyed on a balcony at dusk with a fine red. No, she's the kind of dream you have in the broken-air-conditioner crotch of a night where you fight the sheets for hours while trapped in a subconscious chase of a goal that never materializes, and then you wake up and hack up crap for a moment while realizing you never knew what you were chasing at all.

He thought it might not always have been like that. She was solid, and his, and she was all that had ever mattered. Back when it was just them in an apartment the landlord swore did not have mold problems, when she took jobs for which she was ridiculously overqualified while Neal sat on the couch in professional attire with no place professional to be, researching how to look like a lawyer or how to age manuscripts, they could only rely on each other. He politely ignored the impatient flashes in her eyes and the wondering when he would _fucking start some lucrative crime_ that wasn't just small shoplifts and the occasional blackmail.

Then they would fuck on an air mattress. That felt kind of real (as the fitted sheet popped loose from the slick plastic mattress corner _again_.)

Then he started politely ignoring the flat way she kept from saying anything like wondering _when would he fucking stop_, even as she dressed up to be arm candy for office cocktail parties at jobs where Neal was doctoring the books. Sometimes it would occur to him with something like a shock how _young_ Kate looked, curtains of thick dark hair concealing her bright eyes.

When she came to see him in prison, every week he absolutely knew what they had was real, knew it with the fervor of a Southern Baptist on a Sunday morning. (Hey, he knew Southern Baptists. He had bought a trail horse from a farm in Alabama, then turned around and sold a bay thoroughbred to a breeder in Kentucky for nine hundred grand, with the help of some dye and microchip flim-flammery and a small handful of raw ginger.) Where his life was a series of chalkmarks on walls duller than he had ever thought uncultured poverty could be, Kate was the only real thing in that grey world. They couldn't really talk, not with security guards and cameras making sure they played nice. But it was alright that all they could say was _I miss you _and _I miss you too_ and _you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to get good wine in here, which would be wasted on this palate-destroying slop they call food here anyway._

Now that he's out and chasing her again, trying to get a music box that will get her attention, it feels like it could be old times. He sees every headshake from Peter, who endlessly chases him and sees every mention of Kate as a betrayal. Neal thinks the worst part of that is that Peter understands his need, and so he can't even resent Peter for trying to stop him. But reaching Kate is the goal, has always been the goal, and Neal can't really fathom life without it.

After all, she's the girl of his dreams.

Peter, chasing Neal:

Peter sometimes wonders if he's being unfaithful to his wife with Neal Caffrey, career criminal.

Not literally cheating--good _god_, no, what a disturbing thought--but he's not blind to the comparisons. The effort he put into following Elizabeth, learning about her, creating a new life with her as a focus is almost dwarfed by the work hours he's put into investigating Caffrey, following his trail across the country and building a reputation on putting the man behind bars (twice.) Elizabeth has been a steady pillar in his life just slightly longer than Neal has. Between the two of them, Peter knows who he is: the good husband who loves Elizabeth, the good agent who caught Neal Caffrey.

And yet with all that, he marvels at the ease with which Neal can push his buttons and make him so frustrated with Neal's idiocy that he'd slap the handcuffs back on him in a minute. It's the sort of button-pushing you get from family members, he thinks. People that know you so well they can enrage you with perfect precision.

He doesn't know what kind of family Neal would be to him. Too old to be a son, though he feels distinctly like he needs to parent him some days; perhaps a younger brother. Sometimes Neal looks at him with unrestrained horror when he eats a deviled ham sandwich or he shrugs off the intricacies of an Impressionist painting and that is probably very brotherly.

But every time Neal seems to have gone back to his old ways, Peter is so afraid that he's failed. For some reason this boy (hardly a man, and he has the impulse control of a child) has crossed his path and for some reason Peter feels so much responsibility for raising him right. Kate never wanted him on the straight and narrow, and clearly nobody ever made Neal try it; Peter is the only one looking out for his best interests.

Besides, it's easier to keep an eye on Caffrey when he's living in the same city. It's just easier to go to work with a criminal he knows and come home to a wife he knows. Simplicity's a beautiful thing.

Elizabeth, watching Peter:

The first time Elizabeth meets Neal, it feels like a reunion. She has to remind herself she doesn't know him at all, or at least he doesn't know her at all, or else she'll start babbling away and probably try to feed him those new cranberry-macadamia cookies the last caterer proposed. She knows that Peter thinks he ought to have problem with Neal just walking in and being in their home, but it doesn't bother Elizabeth: Peter was the one who invited Neal into their home years ago. Peter was the one who brought all his files home and spread them out on the kitchen table night after night, working on the Caffrey case long after Elizabeth had gone to bed. Having Neal stroll in for lunch is infinitely preferable to having printoffs of him on the dinner table while Elizabeth sees how long it will take Peter to notice she's discussing her grandmother's descent into profligate spending on cocaine and rent boys (an amazing seven minutes and twenty-six seconds.)

Peter cares so much for Neal. Elizabeth can see it in the way his forehead wrinkles in annoyance when Neal does something that could send him back to jail, and how he looks like he's working a bit of food out of his teeth when he tries to suppress a smile at something clever Neal did. And Elizabeth remembers the frustration in Peter's voice when he told her about this brilliant counterfeiter wasting his life on crime that would only land him in prison, and how he would sigh when a birthday card arrived at their house from Neal, instead of ordering some sort of communications restraint. The two men may have been antagonists, but Peter had never wanted them to be enemies.

When Elizabeth sees Neal's floppy hair and bright eyes and easy grin she has to resist the urge to pat him on the head, and it seems much the same for Peter: it's like he's not much of a dog person and Neal is a puppy he brought home from the animal rescue. So he'll frown and shout and make all sorts of threats while Neal sits by the suspicious wet spot in the carpet, and swear Neal's going back to the pound, and Elizabeth will roll her eyes and remind her husband that he's only a puppy and can't help it. And so Peter will lock him out in the backyard but it's only a matter of time before the Neal-puppy is back inside and trying to steal scraps off the table, or Peter's wallet from his pocket, just for fun.

Not that Neal is their dog. They have Satchmo for that.

Elizabeth sees the apprehension in Peter's eyes when he's afraid she's going to be jealous. When he flirts with a woman undercover, when he spends all his time with Neal. It would make her laugh, if the sweetness of it didn't instead make her feel ridiculously more adolescent than she is. She sees how Peter is the only one Neal will really listen to, the only one to whom he ever seems to want to genuinely prove his innocence. It makes her proud that her husband is such a good man that an unrepentant trickster like Neal would trust him as much as he does, and she trusts Peter all the more because of it.

While Peter has sharp eyes for important details and Neal dances his way through one improvisation after another, Elizabeth looks at the larger picture and moves the details to where they matter. She points out what wine and cheese selection will be best for what fundraiser and she points out what these men that she loves are really doing; how they run away and always come back.

Elizabeth sees everything.


End file.
